Messkit/Cookset

So you’ve decided you’d rather survive this whole zombie apocalypse thing, huh? Good for you! I daresay I wholeheartedly agree with your notion. One of the most critical mistakes anyone who is planning any sort of survival scenario can make is to neglect to evaluate their cook set. “But Bast,” I hear you say “I’ve had the same cook set for 10 years and it’s perfectly fine”. I too once thought as you do. Allow me to set a scene for you, dear reader:

It was March of 2004 and I was on the first night of what would be a 5 month hike of the Appalachian Trail. I’d recently upgraded all of my gear: water filter, pack, sleeping bag, literally everything except my cook set. On that first night in the North Georgia mountains, the wind was a sustained 30mph and the thermometer was hovering around 10 degrees Fahrenheit. It was only when I started to prepare my meal and added water (I’d had to break through ice to obtain) to my “good old” cook set that I realized my only pot and the source of my hot meals for the next 3 days and nights had sprung a leak and was utterly useless. Almost as if to add insult to injury, the leaking pot ended up dribbling water all over me as I tried desperately to save any of the precious water that I could from leaking onto the ground and my stove. I was wet, cold and hungry without a pot to cook in as the sun set.

The lesson here is 2 fold:

1. Do not unduly trust your equipment. Check it all and if something is suspect replace it.
2. Shit happens, but you will have to keep going.

So with that all in mind, let’s look at a really great cook set that is conveniently impervious to rusting.

The Snow Peak Titanium Mini Solo Cookset